Religion is great for fooling the faithful, conning people into conversion, and providing them with a bunch of made up props to further the cause, or in other words, relics.
In the religious sense, relics are the body parts or belongings of saviors and/or saints, which must be venerated, and can be visited. They provide a profitable tourist trade to the location which houses them.
The world of relics can reveal more amazing miracles and ‘facts’ than can be found even in the Holy Bible and its functional equivalents. For instance, the observation by John Calvin the OG of the Protestant Reformation, when speaking of religious relics:[1]
‘Every Apostle has more than four bodies, and every Saint two or three.’
The Catholic response has been that a relic serves for a spiritual connection, and if that connection ‘is made through an object which maybe forensically won’t stand up to the test, that’s of secondary importance to the spiritual and emotive power that the object can contain, and does contain.’[2]
That is really fake it ‘til you make it, or perhaps better said, make it so you can fake it.
The Catholics are kind enough to explain to us the three types of relics:
‘First-class relics are items that are directly associated with the events of Christ’s life or the physical remains of a saint; second-class relics are items that were owned or used by a saint; and third-class relics are objects that have come in contact with first- or second-class relics.’[3]
Since many modern scholars cast doubt on the actual existence of Christ, and observe that many ‘saints’ are conversions of pagan gods/goddesses, viewing from that perspective would make all relics fake.
Speaking of saints and phony relics, let’s pay a flying visit to Saint Rosalia and her relics.
Known as the ‘little saint’ she is the patroness of Palermo, Sicily, which is the land of those good people who brought us the Mafia. She lived in a cave in the 12th century, on Mount Pellegrino. She died in the cave.
In the 17th century, when a plague struck the region, the inhabitants began seeing visions of Rosalia, who rose to the occasion by leading them to the cave she supposedly had inhabited, and wherein, the locals found her bones.
The bones became relics. That ruse worked for about two centuries, even though logic and experience would tell a person that many bones could be found in a cave over the centuries, because many types of creatures might take shelter there.
A goat for instance. Because in 1825, it was determined by a British geologist, William Buckland, that either Saint Rosalia was a goat, (which would probably not strain the credulity of the average devout Catholic), or the bones supposed to be those of the saint, were actually the bones of a goat.[4]
Then we have the OG of relics, the Shroud of Turin. This cloth, ‘discovered’ in the 14th century, was purported to be a piece of textile that held the image of the crucified Christ. It was put forth as the actual bloodstained shroud which covered his crucified body.
Christianity is certainly a collection of convenient coincidences, whether contrived or not. But in the case of the Shroud of Turin, let’s go with contrived. It was determined in 1978, that the supposed blood stains were painted on, and weren’t blood.[5]
Now, was the story of this relic made out of whole cloth? (Pun definitely intended.)
While a carbon dating in the 1980s found the cloth to be of contemporary origin with its appearance, newer testing methods do date the cloth back to what could have been the time of who could have been Christ. Using something called Wide Angle X-Ray Scattering.[6]
Let’s give the church a hand, and for the sake of argument, agree that the cloth itself could have been of first century C.E. origin. But what of the image?
In 2024 it was demonstrated that the image could not have come from a three-dimensional human underneath it, but was likely from a relief sculpture.[7]
Now, let’s get really familiar with Jesus, and discuss the relic that purports to be that part of him which was removed that symbolized the covenant with God and his people — his foreskin.
This relic, known as The Holy Prepuce, purports to be just that, the foreskin of Christ. Of course, since there were a variety of churches that claimed to possess this relic, one might be justified in casting a jaded eye at the claim.
However, The Holy Prepuce makes a great gift. In 799 King Charlemagne gave it to Pope Leo III. It remained there until 1527, when the church reliquary was, appropriately enough, ‘sacked.’
Thirty years later, it winds up in another church, located outside of Rome where it remained, until it was discovered ‘missing,’ in 1983. Theories of who the thief was, range from the Vatican, to Satanists.
But perhaps that wasn’t the real foreskin, because during the Middle Ages, it was estimated that over thirty churches possessed the ‘real thing’.
Even the church was somewhat upset about this much ado about very little, and in 1900 threatened to excommunicate any believer that wrote about it. (Apparently it was a subject that unlike the object from which the subject was removed, was to be kept under wraps).
Why You Should Care
Most religions require that as one of the faithful, you, as did Alice in Wonderland, believe six impossible things before breakfast. Virgin birth, resurrection from the dead, talking snakes, burning bushes, temporary residence in whales, demolition by trumpets and such are the stuff that faith is made from.
But when it comes to the manufacture of relics to sucker the supplicants, it gets really down and really dirty.
Phony faith-oriented objects designed to put a church or a village on the Pilgrim’s map, to take in from believers what supposedly belonged to Caesar (according to the Bible), but was always actively sought by the Church — coin.
Such sharp practices are an insult to those that believe, and another piece of evidence for the arguments of those who don’t.
[1] BLIND FAITH RELIGIOUS FORGERIES, JUSTINE DAMIANO 2019 https://www.magellantv.com/articles/blind-faith-religious-forgeries-from-the-middle-ages-to-the-age-of-technology
[2] CATHOLIC HERALD 6/2011 https://catholicherald.co.uk/debate-does-it-matter-if-relics-are-fake/
[3] BLIND FAITH, op.cit.
[4] BLIND FAITH op. cit.
[5] THE SHROUD PAINTING EXPLAINED, McCRONE, BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY SOCIETY https://library.biblicalarchaeology.org/sidebar/the-shroud-painting-explained/
[6] NEW X-RAY TESTS DATE TURIN SHROUD TO THE TIME OF JESUS Laura Gilb 11/1/2024 https://www.patternsofevidence.com/2024/11/01/new-x-ray-tests-date-turin-shroud-to-the-time-of-jesus/
[7] Shroud of Turin was not used to wrap Jesus’ body after crucifixion, bombshell study asserts NY POST 10/30/24 https://nypost.com/2024/10/30/science/shroud-of-turin-was-not-used-to-wrap-jesus-body-after-crucifixion-bombshell-study-asserts/